Poststructuralist/Postmodernism

Partly in response to the inability of modernization/structuralist theories to provide adequate explanations for social change, postmodern theories arose in the 1960s and 1970s.

Postmodernism rejects the notion that a grand theory (or metanarrative) can adequately capture social life (what Mandell and Duffy call a “master narrative”). Instead postmodernists advocate for theory that provides multiple, provisional explanations.

Postmodernism is also deconstructs modernist myths, such as the myth of family consensus or the myth of the family as a haven from the heartless world.